Sea Serpent Carcass or Gaff?
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on June 8th, 2011
I found these images on Karl Shuker’s facebook page.
Thoughts?
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
At first, I thought the tail of the beast looked a little crumpled, like its skin was made out of paper, hence a fake. But the second picture made me more interested: the head area looks real. The head also has some similarities to the heads of the coffee-drinking, naked aliens in the Men in Black movies. Perhaps the crumpled tail-like body is that way because of its unique biology or being dried in sunlight?
The pics were taken in 2009…I haven’t heard of anything like this being on the science websites or news sites or anything. Is it being researched, and if so, what is the hold up on Christening it a brand new species? Has it been proven legit? Why is it coming out now instead of two years ago?
If its legit, its a fantastic find.
Bow Ties are COOL!
It sort of looks like an odd type of kelp, but it appears to have a face, so I don’t know.
Gonna go ahead and say its a fake or a known, yet obscure, creature… IMHO, when/if major discoveries as this would be are found, you’d think the press would be all over it like white on rice, a paper plate, a glass of milk and a snow storm. You almost always have to discount things like these.
If its real, then its prolly a known creature….maybe one of those rarely seen deep sea creatures that we only usually get to see when they wash up dead.
seems a sculpture
All of this guys discoveries are gaffs and photoshop.
Check out “spider-dog”.
This guy isn’t a hoaxer, but a taxidermy artist (“Rouge Taxidermist).
Takeshi Yamada is a famous taxidermy artist who makes strange creatures as art. This is just another example of his rogue taxidermy. Don’t know what animal parts it is created from, but this creature only exists as art. It was never alive.
My first reaction was kelp too.
But upon looking at the pictures more closely, especially the second one, I was amazed by the realistic looking details.
Is that a pair of whiskers just behind the mouth? And look at those bumps on the upper body reminiscent of a sturgeon’s.
Absence of fins would probably mean that the creature, if real, is sedentary wouldn’t it?
Takeshi Yamada is a new york artist that creates taxidermy gaffs.
Let me google that for you.
Takeshi Yamada is a gaff artist from New York
And….. Boom goes the dynamite.
Mystery solved.
Taxidermy is sweet.
Takeshi Yamada is Japanese-American taxidermist/artist who ‘creates’ monsters. The white coat and bow tie is obviously staged for the photograph.
“Dr.” Yamada is an artist.
He even made some other cryptid specimens like a Chupacabra, or Mongolian Death Worm.
Looks like a giant tadpole made to live in the sea.
It’s a fake, guy in the picture is a ‘rogue taxidermist’ according to boing boing (2nd result if you google his name)
‘Takeshi Yamada’s curious taxidermy creations’
From the same web page:
“Consequently, it was only ever likely to be just a matter of time before I became acquainted with the spectacular zoological creations of multi-award-winning Japanese-born artist, author, and educator Takeshi Yamada”
Google him and you will find hisother works of art
It a Fake. But I do like his work ( Museum of World Wonders ) 🙂
On Shuker’s ShukerNature blog he shows a lot more work by this artist and a little more about him. Very cool stuff, cryptozoology-inspired, but not real.
Takeshi Yamada is a taxidermy specialist.
A quick google search of his name informed me of this, and in this link you can see some of his other creations.
It’s a hoax. Google this guy and you will find out he is an artist that stuffs things. Too bad it wasn’t real!
Fake, this guys a taxidermist, says something about mermaids and stuff. Shame.
It looked kind of dried out. Not sure what it could be. Might be a stuffed fabric of some sort, though I’m not sure what would give it that texture. It’s a prop I can’t see any photo shop tricks. I’m with Hapa, it was 2009, it would have been all over the news if it was a legit find.
My husband thinks it might be a large deep sea fish.
It’s a hoax. That guy’s been entering the paranormal hoax contest for years.
He’s quite good at what he does, but I doubt this is the real thing.
Just Googled the Dr in the pics. He’s listed as a rogue taxidermist. Makes human faced ants, giant hairy spiders with dogs heads. So I’d say fake.
‘I must take my lab coat to the beach with me so people know I’m a scientist.’
I did a web search on the name, this guy is a ROGUE TAXIDERMIST and has created some pretty odd stuff so what we have here is a GAFF folks!
Google Dr. Takeshi Yamada, and the first result is this site, which claims Dr. Yamada has discovered numerous mysterious creatures, including a vampire monkey the giant chupacabra snail, which strongly appear as fakes.
Likely this is a fake as well.
Have to agree, the very first thing that comes up when you google his name is ‘rouge taxidermy’ . But think of how much more difficult it would have been to determine this if his name wasn’t on the bottom of the snapshot.
His stuff is fabulous!
Those are cool pics. The guy has a got a good imagination.
You can see its a gaff. The head he is holding appears to have little or no weight. If this were a fish type species and was real a head that size would weigh about 40lbs and would look as such. This looks as if he is holding it effortlessly. the skin looks a bit fake but the head and the mans reputation make me say fake.
Everyone, please read the comments. It has already been proven this is fake. No need to comment unless you have something that hasn’t been said.
Regardless of taxidermy art, “spider-dog” is just down right wrong and scary.